


faintly I remember the sun

by quantumducky



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Kidnapping, M/M, Post MAG160, Sensory Deprivation, Torture, Whump, jon sweetie i'm so sorry, mechs references? in MY tma fic title? yes, oh almost forgot-
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-13 17:55:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21498148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumducky/pseuds/quantumducky
Summary: The world is dangerous, now more than ever. Jon knows this better than anyone. He made it that way. He knows it's a risk every time he leaves the relative safety of the house, no matter what he brings along to protect himself. Especially if he goes out alone. But it can't be helped, sometimes, and he's known all along something would get him eventually.The funny thing, though- he always sort of thought it would be the monsters. He should have remembered: at this point, he's the worst of them all.Or: A lot of people are, to put it lightly,not very happyabout this whole "end of the world" business. Really, it's a miracle Jon has made it this long without any of them finding out who to blame.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 50
Kudos: 615





	faintly I remember the sun

**Author's Note:**

> working title: "postapocalyptic fun with torturing jon :)"

The world is dangerous, now more than ever. Jon knows this better than anyone. He made it that way. He knows it's a risk every time he leaves the relative safety of the house, no matter what he brings along to protect himself. Especially if he goes out alone. But it can't be helped, sometimes, and he's known all along something would get him eventually.

The funny thing, though- he always sort of thought it would be the monsters. He should have remembered: at this point, he's the worst of them all.

He doesn't even realize what's happening at first. Tries to protest that he doesn't mean any harm, didn't know how close he was wandering to someone's home, and takes the lack of warnings from the Beholding as proof of safety as if it would ever actually care whether he's safe. By the time he realizes it's more than a territory issue, it's too late to run. He is already being dragged away before he can so much as think about escaping the situation. "Why," is all he's able to gasp out before a cloth is forced into his mouth to shut him up, but it carries the desperate force of compulsion. He hears the beginning of a story- familiar save for the details, another life ruined, all Jon's fault- before someone behind him growls angrily, and a blow to the head that would kill a normal person knocks the Archivist unconscious.

Jon wakes up in the dark, and he doesn't even get the luxury of briefly forgetting the circumstances. He might, he thinks wistfully, have been able to imagine himself waking up at home, if he couldn't remember. But he knows what happened. He immediately begins taking stock, careful and thorough, of what is happening  _ now. _

Darkness, but more precisely, something covering his eyes- the taking of his vision is intentional, not some side-effect of night. A hard surface beneath him- floor? Is he inside now? The room, if it is one, is quiet, but he hears movement elsewhere, and distant voices he can't quite make out. At last, he tries to sit up, and- no, he shouldn't have expected that to work, really. Can't so much as move any of his limbs, and he wonders distantly if these people don't have any  _ better _ use for this amount of whatever they've tied him up with. He doesn't know what that is, he… he doesn't know  _ anything, _ save for the little information his senses are providing. For the first time since waking up, Jon is truly, fully afraid.

Nothing happens for a while. Maybe they don't expect him to be awake yet. He should take the time to plan, but… what can he do? He's not going anywhere, and it's not as if anyone would be stupid enough to remove the gag and give him a chance to speak. His thoughts begin turning to why exactly he's here, what his captors might want from him, and- he has to cut off that line of thought, it's  _ far _ too easy to imagine a million different horrible outcomes and he can't afford to start panicking. No more thinking, not until he has more to go on. He begins counting the seconds as they go by, keeping track of how long it takes for someone to come in now that he's awake. Gathering information placates one restless part of him, and hopefully, keeping his mind off everything else will quiet the other.

When a door opens and someone approaches him, it has been an hour and twenty-two minutes since he woke up. The first thing they do is kick him in the remaining ribs, and he can practically hear their satisfaction when he curls in on himself reflexively and groans.

"I expect you've got questions," they say, and despite himself Jon perks up at the thought of answers. It must be obvious, because they laugh. "Well, too fucking bad. I'm  _ not _ giving you the tragic backstory that made me want you dead. But you need to suffer like everyone else, and I'm going to make sure of it."

He makes a muffled protest, because he's  _ been _ suffering the whole damn time, but of course they don't care what he has to say about it.

"I don't actually know if you can die," they continue, and isn't  _ that _ encouraging. "And I don't know if being cut off from things to  _ know _ will be enough to do it, but I guess we'll just have to find out together, won't we? If not, well, at least if you're here you're not doing any more damage, ever again."

A chill runs through Jon's whole body as he realizes they're not just here to  _ hurt _ him for their revenge- they're planning to leave him like this  _ forever. _

"And now that we're on the same page… let's make sure you don't go overhearing anything you shouldn't." He realizes what they're about to do a second before it happens and thrashes in sudden panic at being touched, but it's all too easy for them to shove him down again. His head cracks against the floor, and he's too dazed to do more than weakly protest as something else is fastened firmly on his head and his world goes utterly, horribly silent. He knows his captor is leaving by the slightest hint of light from outside the door that makes it through whatever is covering his eyes, and then he knows absolutely nothing for a long, long time.

Jon tries to keep track of time, only interrupted by the occasional unknown person coming in to… vent their frustrations on him. Or to punish something he's done, like trying to get up and find the door, or making too much noise, or making any sound whatsoever just for the sake of hearing himself. It's not so bad, actually, better than the  _ nothing _ in between, alone with his thoughts. He hurts, and it reminds him that he is still real and alive. One day, if it  _ is _ a day, he wakes up and realizes he doesn't remember falling asleep, and the counting he's been relying on is suddenly meaningless. He didn't think he had been sleeping at all, but there's no way to tell, now, how much time he's completely missed. He might have been here for the few weeks he'd estimated, or- or it could be  _ twice _ that. He needs to figure it out, but it's difficult to think clearly. He is so very hungry.

Counting seconds is useless, but Jon tries to keep it up anyway- if only to stop himself thinking. It's a new low of despair when he realizes he can't even do  _ that _ anymore. He can't tell if he's  _ awake _ or not, dreaming or just hallucinating from the lack of sensory input, and when he tries to focus on numbers they blur together and slide out of reach in his mind. He gives up. More often than not, now, he is left alone for what he can only  _ guess _ is many days at a time. When he sleeps he returns to his collection of dreams, but they're growing indistinct, more ragged and warped the longer he is cut off. No one else appears in them anymore. There is only him, reliving others' nightmares, sometimes blind and deafened even here. He wonders if this is what it is like to be consumed by what he can no longer feed.

Sometimes, the dreams take him even when he thought he was awake. Other times, there are different hallucinations to fill his waking hours. Mostly, they are no less awful than his nightmares, except that they didn't really happen. He  _ thinks _ they didn't really happen. He doesn't know anymore, doesn't know  _ anything, _ just as they'd threatened. But he doesn't remember Basira dying, or Georgie or- or Martin.  _ God, _ he hopes Martin isn't dead. Jon thought about him a lot at first- hopeful thoughts,  _ maybe he'll find me, maybe I'll see him again, before I die. _ He tries not to anymore. He can't think  _ maybe he'll come for me _ without the thought ending in  _ and then they will kill him. _ He'd rather die here himself than  _ that. _

It's been a long time. Of that much, he is almost certain. He loses energy to move and will to try, stops reacting to blows both real and imagined. It makes him less interesting, he supposes. The beatings grow fewer and farther between. Jon thinks he might miss them; the absence of pain makes him restless, nervous, has he been left to die at last? He might be desperate enough to hurt  _ himself _ just for the familiarity, but that would take strength he doesn't have. All he can do is lie here and wonder if it will ever be over.

…Is anyone even here, anymore?

They've stopped coming in. The occasional vibration of the floor, indicating movement somewhere else in whatever building this is, that's been gone for a long time too. What feels like a long time, at least. He can't quite convince himself it might have only been a day or two. Irrational as it is, he feels horribly  _ abandoned. _ People who wanted him to suffer and die were still at least  _ people. _

He takes up humming to himself, now that no one is here to stop him. His voice is weak, barely there to begin with and muffled further by the gag, but it… it helps. Even if the sound is tuneless, most of the time, as he can barely remember his own name sometimes, let alone music. Rarely, a snatch of an actual song will surface in his memory, and he latches onto it until it's lost again. Once, the melody carries another memory attached to it. The kitchen in the safe house, there's no radio so they're making their own music, singing off-key and slow-dancing to something wildly inappropriate and laughing at the absurdity of it all. Even as he clings to the image, it slips away again, and the only thing stopping him from breaking down in unrestrained tears is the fact that he passed the point long ago of being far too dehydrated to cry. Jon presses his face into the floor and tries to stop thinking.

He is alone, purely alone, for so long. Long enough to take any hope he tries to muster and tear it to shreds. By now, he's nearly come to accept that no one is coming, that nothing will ever change, that this is all there will ever be for him. Not in so many words, of course- his mind is too fragmented for that. He feels the certainty, instead, as a fresh wave of despair, and sinks into it without resistance, wishes it would finally drown him. So deep in his own misery, he doesn't register the feeling of approaching footsteps until he is already being touched.

His first thought is,  _ This can't be real. _ His second thought is,  _ There's no way I could imagine it. _ What memories he has left of contact are much too vague to synthesize anything as clear as this. The third is an overwhelming jumble of  _ who-how-why, _ a visceral need for more information, and Jon makes a tiny, pained sound at the reminder of how long he's been starving. The person attached to the hands on his face doesn't hit him for it. That's new.

There's a moment of shifting, and then he can  _ hear again, _ even if it's just his own breathing and the other person's. He inhales sharply. The hands return to his face, thumbs rubbing soothing circles, and none of it makes any  _ sense _ to him, why are they being so- so  _ nice? _ (When is that going to end?) He tries to calm himself, get used to the sudden loudness of every ambient sound, and then-

"Jon?" Even the soft whisper is almost too much. That doesn't matter, though, because either he's having  _ much _ better hallucinations now or  _ that's Martin. _ He tries to respond, and when he remembers why that's not going to work, just nuzzles into his hands with the little ability to move he still has, the effort pulling another whimper from him.

"Shh, it's okay," Martin breathes, "I'm not going anywhere, I've got you. You're gonna be okay."

His hands fumble at the back of Jon's head, and then he's pulling the gag away. His mouth feels strange without it, after so long; he immediately tries to speak and only manages a wordless, painful sound. His throat is so dry. A terrible idea crosses his mind- what if this  _ is _ all his imagination, and that's why he still can't get any words out- and his face twists with the thought, and Martin is shushing him again instantly.

"I- here, just lay still for me, I'll get you some water." As if he can do anything  _ but _ lie still. His head is guided to rest somewhere- soft, warm, fabric against his face… Martin's legs, he decides, and that's the only reason he doesn't protest the moving-away of his hands. There's a rustling sound, then the cap of a water bottle being unscrewed, before Martin tilts his head up and carefully, far too slowly in his opinion, lets it pour into his mouth. Jon can barely remember how this works. He swallows a few times on pure reflex, but then he breathes wrong and starts coughing, and the water is taken away, and he isn't prepared for the pure moment of  _ panic _ that sets off.

"Jon, hey- i-it's okay, I'm not- listen, you can have more soon okay, I promise, but you need to  _ breathe, _ please," and he sounds so upset and Jon trusts him, so he tries, even though Martin is hurting his ears, raising his voice almost to a normal speaking volume. "It's just- you'll make yourself sick if you aren't careful…"

Jon understands this, intellectually, in the small remaining corner of him  _ capable _ of intellectual understanding. He gives a barely perceptible nod, and calms down, and tries not to whine when Martin keeps forcing him to take it slow, and… he feels a little better, soon.

Enough to finally be able to thank him out loud, even if it does still come out as a hoarse whisper. There are so  _ many _ things he could be referring to, as vague as he is-  _ thank you for helping, for finding me, for caring enough to try in the first place- _ and he decides he means all of them at once, and probably a few more he's forgetting. Martin's breathing goes shaky when he hears it.

"Don't- Jon, please, I, I should be apologizing, you've been gone for months, and, and, and I couldn't- I was looking, I swear, but- I'm sorry." He sounds close to tears, and Jon doesn't have the energy to do anything about it other than attempt a soft noise of dissent. He hears Martin get himself together again. "Right, you're still… Sorry. Again. Do you- you'd probably rather be able to see before I start on untying you, right? It just… might be overwhelming, so I wanted to warn you."

He nods as emphatically as he can.  _ "Please." _

"Alright, I'm taking this off you now." He struggles with the knots for a bit- they had  _ really _ not wanted Jon to have any chance at seeing anything- and then the blindfold is pulled away, and everything is so  _ bright. _

It's not, really. The room is dark, only a little light spilling in through the half-open door, and even that is pretty dim. But Jon has seen nothing but pure darkness for months, and it  _ hurts. _ He gasps, closes his eyes reflexively and presses his face against Martin's leg to block out the light.

"I know," Martin whispers. His hand settles in Jon's hopelessly matted hair, scratching gently at his scalp, and Jon shivers. That's almost too much, as well, that careful touch on top of everything else. No one has touched him in a very long time, and no one has touched him without  _ hurting _ him in even longer. "Take your time, sweetheart."

Jon makes a stricken little sound, at that, and forces himself to look up. He  _ needs _ to see him, even if all he can make out is a silhouette in the darkness. He doesn't last long before squeezing his eyes shut again, but at least now he can add "seeing Martin" to the list of things he was wrong about never getting to do again.

Martin just sits there for a while, soothing him with little touches as he tries to adjust, and finally whispers to him again once he's able to look around without hurting himself. "If you're ready," he says, and Jon tears himself away from glaring at the discarded fabric on the floor next to them, "I'm going to try and get you free now. But- you're gonna be really stiff and this is probably going to  _ hurt, _ so I won't start until you want me to, okay?"

"Go… go ahead." Hurting isn't a problem. It's the  _ nothing _ Jon can't handle any more of.

"Okay."

He maneuvers Jon halfway into his lap, turning him on his side to get at his arms, and makes a low, sympathetic noise at how tightly he's been restrained all this time. Jon doesn't have the energy to explain that it's not so bad, really, since he hasn't been able to properly  _ feel _ his arms in quite a while. His face is hidden against Martin's side now, but he can hear him working, hissing threats in the general direction of the twine binding Jon's arms. And then- it's gone. His limbs feel utterly foreign as Martin shifts him onto his back and carefully folds them across his chest, and then-  ** _fuck._ ** Then they feel like they're on  _ fire. _ Jon sobs and spasms, trying to curl in on himself but lacking the strength.

Martin tries to shush him: "It's okay, you're okay, it will pass…" It does help, he thinks, hearing him, but he's still just lying there in agony, struggling to focus on anything else. "Okay. Okay, um- Jon?" He's listening. "Jon, why don't- Ask me about what happened," he says a bit desperately. "Ask me- ask me how I found you."

He should hesitate, probably, he thinks, because Martin is- Martin has been  _ off limits, _ very firmly, for as long as he can remember. But it's been  _ so long, _ and- and he's  _ offering, _ right, and there's barely even a second's pause before he nods.  _ "Tell me." _

Martin exhales. "I first realized something was wrong when you didn't come home from a supply run on time…"

* * *

When the haze of Listening fades and Jon is once again conscious of his surroundings, he has no idea how long it's been. He barely even remembers what Martin  _ said- _ but it's in there somewhere, he knows.  _ Archived. _ They can talk about it again when his mind is working right. Right now, he feels- not broken, anymore, not that far gone, but… hastily duct-taped back together. Vaguely, he remembers the pain of blood flow returning to extremities that should have long since been considered a permanent loss, had he been human- as he is, everything is going to ache horribly for a while, but at least he can move again. And Martin's voice turning far softer than his story warranted, while his gentle hands massaged life back into Jon's useless body. The hands are still there, actually. Petting his hair, brushing away tears he wasn't even aware of. Jon looks at him and realizes he's been crying, too, though he's smiling down at him now.

"Hey, are you still with me? Jon?"

"Martin." His voice comes out rough, still, and quiet, but it's definitely stronger than before. "Thank you," he says, and then immediately, "I'm sorry. I… I shouldn't…"

_ "Don't _ you dare say that. Not… I told you to ask, and you, you  _ really _ needed something, Jon. Don't argue, okay- or- save it for later, at least. We can talk about it when we get home."

_ When we get home. _ That's what breaks him. The next thing either of them knows he's nearly hyperventilating, one hand clinging to Martin's shirt as he curls into him the best he can.

"Oh, honey…" Martin gathers him up carefully, and Jon feels so small in his arms, held safe, and- it makes him cry even more, he can't  _ handle _ being so  _ loved  _ all at once. If it stopped, he thinks he would die.

"You're- really here," he finally manages.

"I am. I am, Jon, I promise, I'm here and I'm taking you home. Just tell me when you're feeling okay and we can go."

Martin starts rubbing his back, still cooing reassurance and love, and Jon shudders and goes boneless against his chest. He doesn't have the energy for anything else, he's tired and he wants to go home. "Don't think I can walk," he mumbles, and Martin laughs, the puff of air ruffling Jon's hair.

"I know. I'll carry you."

"Oh… I love you," Jon sighs. It's been too long since he's said that. He's going to make it up.

"I love you, too," says Martin, as if it's not the most obvious thing in the world. "Are you ready? Basira and Daisy are waiting for us outside. I didn't want you overwhelmed with too many people, and… we thought it might be safer. In case anything happened."

Jon guesses at his worry. "No one's coming back. They… they're gone. Just. Left me here. A while ago. And I've been alone- I, I don't know  _ why-" _

"Okay- shh, okay." Martin holds him tighter, kisses his forehead. "Thank you for telling me, that's good to know. It's over now, okay? You're not gonna be alone anymore. I won't even- let go of you. Unless you ask."

In that case, Jon supposes they're both going to spend the rest of their lives in this position. He tucks his head into Martin's shoulder with a soft, relieved sound and just breathes for a minute. "I… I think I'm ready to go."

It startles him even when he knows it's coming, the feeling of being scooped up off the floor. Jon knows he must be little more than skin and bones at this point- not even the usual  _ amount _ of bones, at that- but Martin lifts him like he weighs  _ nothing. _ He ends up clinging to his shirt again, disoriented and dizzy, until his head clears.

"Alright?"

He nods, and doesn't quite pull his head back up afterward. His eyes keep slipping closed, no matter how strong the need is to assure himself that he can still see, that this is still real. It's been… a lot. And he's safe now. It's safe to relax.

Martin chuckles softly, noticing his struggle. "You can rest," he tells him, and when he still hesitates, "I'll be sure to wake you up if anything happens."

"Okay," Jon agrees, a slurred sigh, and stops trying to fight his exhaustion. It is, as it turns out, perfectly fine; it would be hard to think he was alone in the dark again while  _ literally _ being  _ carried, _ whether his eyes are open or not. He sinks into the comforting warmth around him- it's been so  _ long, _ since the last time he was actually warm, he forgot to even miss it- and lets himself drift, trusting Martin to keep him safe in his arms until he wakes.

**Author's Note:**

> i really did think the next thing i posted was gonna be something _other_ than jon angst but i guess i underestimated my own desire to repeatedly fuck him up!
> 
> you don't even wanna know how long i sat here trying to come up with a decent title for this before i remembered the mechanisms exist


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